


Pandora's Box

by Anonymous033



Series: Arospec Hayes [3]
Category: Conviction (TV 2016)
Genre: Aromantic, Arospec Hayes, Gen, Internalized Arophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-04
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-09-06 11:29:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8748904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonymous033/pseuds/Anonymous033
Summary: She doesn’t know whether she would be a different person if she had known aromanticism existed. Post-1x08 "Bad Deals".





	

“Tinkerbell, a word?” Hayes asks as she brushes past her team on the way to her office; out of the corner of her eye, she sees Tess stand and follow her. Once behind her desk, she turns around and faces the blonde woman squarely. “First off: Wallace is a douche, and I am sorry for everything I have ever said about him to you. Secondly: What the hell is a Tumblr?”

Tess blinks at her.

She blinks right back.

“It’s a blog,” Tess says. “Why?”

“That aromantic thing—I looked it up; it’s coming back to these Tumblr pages a lot.”

“Is that all the results you’ve been getting?” Tess asks in confusion.

“Well, no,” Hayes concedes, “but is this an identity bloggers came up with?”

“No,” Tess replies in amusement. “It didn’t start there, but it does have a pretty large Tumblr presence.”

“Huh.” Hayes leans back on the balls of her feet as she ponders that.

“Did you find anything useful?”

Hayes shrugs. “We’re all douches in the political world,” she tells Tess casually, drumming her fingertips on the glass top of her desk. “Makes not staying in a romantic relationship easy.”

“I … wouldn’t know what that’s like, but it does sound complicated.”

“Got any girlfriends, Tess? Boyfriends? Non-binary partners?”

Tess freezes for a moment before she responds, almost shyly, “Girlfriends, but not right now.”

Hayes nods in acknowledgement. “You get the fuzzies for them?”

“That’s a bit invasive, but yes.”

“That’s the pot calling the kettle black,” Hayes points out, and yet she obligingly swallows her next question and waits for Tess to decide whether or not to dismiss herself. The other woman seems to have cottoned on as to where the conversation is going, however, as she steps forwards and states boldly:

“You want to know what romantic feelings are like.”

Hayes tilts her head to one side.

“They’re great,” Tess says, gaze turning dreamy as she loses herself in her memories. “They’re fluttery, and they warm your chest, and—you’re wrinkling your nose.”

Hayes tries to look apologetic as she uncrumples her features.

Tess laughs. “I don’t think you’ll find what you need with me, but have you tried asking other people who do identify as aromantic?”

“Eh,” Hayes says vaguely. She barely feels like talking about her situation with the person who introduced her to the term, let alone anyone else, but her general mistrust in people is hard to articulate.

Tess seems to take her silence as permission to speak. “You don’t have to use the label if you don’t want to, you know. You can just say that the political world makes it hard for you to date.”

“I thought it was just that,” Hayes confesses quietly. “But I also thought it wasn’t. I don’t know; there’s a long story to it.”

“There tends to be a long story when you don’t have the words for what you’re experiencing,” Tess answers sympathetically.

“And now I have a word,” Hayes adds, and Tess nods encouragingly, “but what if it’s the wrong word?”

“I’ve always known I was gay,” Tess replies, “but I have friends who thought they were straight until they realized they liked girls, and a friend who thought she was gay for the longest time before she identified as pansexual.”

“That’s the most politically correct answer for ‘you never know until you try’ I’ve ever heard.”

Tess gives a giggle. “Maybe, but I think it’s true.”

And it probably is, but that doesn’t mean Hayes has to be _happy_ about it.

Up to this point, she’s never really had to question her sexuality; she’d figured out her bisexuality early on in life, and having both a gay brother as role model and a general distaste for the rigidity of gender constructs meant she could readily engage with whomever she was attracted to, societal opinions be damned.

If the _how_ s of engagement confused her in a way that the _who_ s didn’t, she’d simply chalked that down to trying to survive a difficult environment.

She doesn’t know whether she would be a different person if she had known aromanticism existed. It isn’t as if she’s gone through life _wanting_ romantic relationships, but romantic relationships have always preyed on her mind—a threat she must bend to, almost, and which has only grown larger the older she’s gotten. She knows people have always expected her to want romance and romantic relationships, too; her dating life is consistently brought up every holiday season, and over the past few weeks, her mother, her brother, and Naomi have all inexplicably alluded to her non-existent ‘feelings’ for Conner.

She can admit to herself that she’s attached to Conner, but how could she possibly go about explaining that her attachment to Conner is tied up in her convoluted feelings about the type of relationships she had assumed she was supposed to want?

She doesn’t even know who she would be if she’d grown up with the space and the confidence to assert the kind of intimacy she _actually_ wanted.

“Fuck,” she mutters, and Tess twists her lips in concern. “I don’t want to have to rewrite my life right now.”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Tess says.

“Yeah, yeah,” Hayes says dismissively. “We opened Pandora’s Box, and you know it.”

Tess has the decency to look sheepish.

“Stupid mid-life crises,” Hayes continues. She irritably pulls the stack of paperwork she has to complete towards herself. _Stupid fucking paperwork._ “I’m gonna pretend we never had this conversation.”

“Okay,” Tess says, and that darkens Hayes’ mood even further.

“Go do your work,” she snaps.

Tess dithers for a moment as if she’s considering saying more, but turns on her heel and leaves the office in the end.

Disregarding the fact that her office is made entirely of glass walls, Hayes drops unceremoniously into her chair and pinches the bridge of her nose.

She’s screwed. She might finally have the answer she’s been needing, but it doesn't come without a price.

* * *

Crossposted to: [Tumblr](http://anonymous033.tumblr.com/post/154032499697/pandoras-box-a-hayes-tess-one-shot)


End file.
